Un día a la vez

Have you ever met the ideal man that you always envisioned and once you had him right in front of your eyes you realize “I don’t think this is what I really want.” Well, I’ve been going back and forth with myself for the past few weeks over how to approach this and I’m afraid that if I don’t just get it out there that it will continue to eat me up inside. I thought I had met the man of my dreams but he turned out to be quite…not as I expected. I’m not going about this post to tell you about my dating life but more so to come clean about how it’s made me wrestle with my thoughts and beliefs as a Christian and how just because two people are “believers” that isn’t an automatic basis for compatibility. 

But let’s go back first.

This man was everything I thought I wanted. Tall, dark, foreign and a strong believer. I was like, “This is it God. This is me.” And then life progressed. I fell into a bit of depression which stemmed from other things outside of my control but I’m thankful for it because it allowed me to see things for what they really were. We were raised in such opposite households, both as Christians, but my home life was far more liberal and his was far too conservative. I’m not saying it couldn’t have worked but maybe I was just too stuck in my ways to venture to the other side. It was in my refusal to do so that made me wonder, “Am I wrong for thinking this way about certain issues? Does this mean I’m not really a Christian?” Certainly not. We all have different views on politics but our opposing views on certain issues became a red flag for the possibility of us furthering our relationship. What if we had kids and one came out as gay?

Instead of lashing out in a full on debate I retreated. I held back and completely re-examined the person I thought to be the man of my dreams. I like to think that before I had met him God kind of just said “You think you want this, but I know you better than you know yourself so here, go ahead so you can see.” After things kind of disintegrated between the two of us I still went back and forth with these thoughts. God allowed me to grow up the way I did for a reason; poor, black and Mexican. Two of perhaps the most oppressed people in America. Yay me! I could even dive deeper and go into my mommy issues and abandonment as a child stemming from her drug abuse as well as having to be raised by a machismo Mexican dad that lived to work despite lingering health issues. Life had always been a mess and I always saw it that way even though I never showed it. I didn’t have the solace of a present mom and dad protecting me from the sins of the world but coming from a broken home taught me a lot. It showed me empathy for the poor because I know what it’s like to live in an empty house. I spent summers with no working water for months and having to figure out makeshift forms of sanitary napkins because I didn’t want to ask my dad for money to buy pads because I felt bad about our lack of money. Of course, I never fully enjoyed my upbringing but I’m grateful for my survival skills and if God truly gives his toughest battles to his strongest fighters then I’m like basically Wonder Woman.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

I know that people are just going to be different and that’s normal but you both should be willing to work through those things and we just weren’t. He wasn’t willing to see things from my perspective and I wasn’t about to spend my time trying to convince him to. Being that there were other circumstances on the line I made the choice that this wasn’t for me and I was perfectly fine with that. If there is one thing that I do know for sure, it’s that I want to be with whatever man God has for me and not whatever man is pursuing me. Until then, I can only take it one day at a time.